Judge sentences Trump in hush money case but declines to impose punishment

Presidentelect Donald Trump was sentenced on Friday in his hush money case but the judge declined to impose any punishmentThe outcome cements Trumps conviction before he returns to power before while freeing him to return to the White House unencumbered by the threat of a jail term or a fineTrumps sentence of an unconditional discharge caps a normsmashing case that saw the former and future president charged with 34 felonies put on trial for almost two months and convicted by a jury on every count Yet the legal detour mdash and sordid details aired in court of a plot to bury affair allegations mdash didnt hurt him with voters who elected him to a second termManhattan Judge Juan M Merchan could have sentenced the 78yearold Republican to up to four years in prison Instead he chose a sentence that sidestepped thorny constitutional issues by effectively ending the case but assured that Trump will become the first person convicted of a felony to assume the presidencyMerchan said that like when facing any other defendant he must consider any aggravating factors before imposing a sentence but the legal protection that Trump will have as president ldquois a factor that overrides all othersrdquoldquoDespite the extraordinary breadth of those legal protections one power they do not provide is that they do not erase a jury verdict Merchan saidTrump briefly addressing the court as he appeared virtually from his Florida home said his criminal trial and conviction has ldquobeen a very terrible experiencerdquo and insisted he committed no crimeThe Republican former president appearing on a video feed 10 days before he is inaugurated again pilloried the case the only one of his four criminal indictments that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that ever willldquoIts been a political witch hunt It was done to damage my reputation so that I would lose the election and obviously that didnt work Trump saidTrump called the case ldquoa weaponisation of governmentrdquo and ldquoan embarrassment to New YorkrdquoWith Trump 10 days from inauguration Judge Juan M Merchan has indicated he plans a nopenalty sentence called an unconditional discharge and prosecutors arent opposing it That would mean no jail time no probation and no fines would be imposed but nothing is final until Fridays proceeding is doneProsecutors said Friday that they supported a nopenalty sentence but they chided Trumps attacks on the legal system throughout and after the caseldquoThe once and future President of the United States has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine its legitimacyrdquo prosecutor Joshua Steinglass saidRather than show remorse Trump has ldquobred disdainrdquo for the jury verdict and the criminal justice system Steinglass said and his calls for retaliation against those involved in the case including calling for the judge to be disbarred has caused enduring damage to public perception of the criminal justice system and has put officers of the court in harms wayrdquoAs he appeared from his Florida home the former president was seated with his lawyer Todd Blanche whom hes tapped to serve as the secondhighest ranking Justice Department official in his incoming administrationldquoLegally this case should not have been broughtrdquo Blanche said reiterating Trumps intention to appeal the verdict That technically cant happen until hes sentencedRegardless of the outcome Trump a Republican will become the first person convicted of a felony to assume the presidencyThe judge has indicated that he plans the unconditional discharge mdash a rarity in felony convictions mdash partly to avoid complicated constitutional issues that would arise if he imposed a penalty that overlapped with Trumps presidencyBefore the hearing a handful of Trump supporters and critics gathered outside One group held a banner that read ldquoTrump is guiltyrdquo The other held one that said ldquoStop partisan conspiracyrdquo and ldquoStop political witch huntrdquo The hush money case accused Trump of fudging his business records to veil a USD 130000 payoff to porn actor Stormy Daniels She was paid late in Trumps 2016 campaign not to tell the public about a sexual encounter she maintains the two had a decade earlier He says nothing sexual happened between them and he contends that his political adversaries spun up a bogus prosecution to try to damage himldquoI never falsified business records It is a fake made up chargerdquo the Republican presidentelect wrote on his Truth Social platform last week Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg whose office brought the charges is a DemocratBraggs office said in a court filing Monday that Trump committed ldquoserious offenses that caused extensive harm to the sanctity of the electoral process and to the integrity of New Yorks financial marketplacerdquoWhile the specific charges were about checks and ledgers the underlying accusations were seamy and deeply entangled with Trumps political rise Prosecutors said Daniels was paid off mdash through Trumps personal attorney at the time Michael Cohen mdash as part of a wider effort to keep voters from hearing about Trumps alleged extramarital escapadesTrump denies the alleged encounters occurred His lawyers said he wanted to squelch the stories to protect his family not his campaign And while prosecutors said Cohens reimbursements for paying Daniels were deceptively logged as legal expenses Trump says thats simply what they wereldquoThere was nothing else it could have been calledrdquo he wrote on Truth Social last week adding ldquoI was hiding nothingrdquo Trumps lawyers tried unsuccessfully to forestall a trial Since his May conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records they have pulled virtually every legal lever within reach to try to get the conviction overturned the case dismissed or at least the sentencing postponedThe Trump attorneys have leaned heavily into assertions of presidential immunity from prosecution and they got a boost in July from a Supreme Court decision that affords former commandersinchief considerable immunityTrump was a private citizen and presidential candidate when Daniels was paid in 2016 He was president when the reimbursements to Cohen were made and recorded the following yearOn one hand Trumps defense argued that immunity should have kept jurors from hearing some evidence such as testimony about some of his conversations with thenWhite House communications director Hope HicksAnd after Trump won this past Novembers election his lawyers argued that the case had to be scrapped to avoid impinging on his upcoming presidency and his transition to the Oval OfficeMerchan a Democrat repeatedly postponed the sentencing initially set for July But last week he set Fridays date citing a need for ldquofinalityrdquo He wrote that he strove to balance Trumps need to govern the Supreme Courts immunity ruling the respect due a jury verdict and the publics expectation that no one is above the lawrdquoTrumps lawyers then launched a flurry of lastminute efforts to block the sentencing Their last hope vanished Thursday night with a 54 Supreme Court ruling that declined to delay the sentencingMeanwhile the other criminal cases that once loomed over Trump have ended or stalled ahead of trialAfter Trumps election special counsel Jack Smith closed out the federal prosecutions over Trumps handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden A statelevel Georgia election interference case is locked in uncertainty after prosecutor FaniWillis was removed from itThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever